This week was a whirlwind between his birthday weekend and my annual conference at work, so I'm just now getting a chance to sit and try to share this with you all.
We'd originally planned to have three of his four grandmothers here along with a family friend, but as it turned out, two were unable to make the long trips from FL and NC, and our friend was sick, so we had a simple, but excellent party with a smaller group.
Nick had the choice between taking one friend to the Aquarium for an outing or doing the whole themed birthday thing like I've done in prior years. He decided he'd rather just have his best friend over and go to the Aquarium, so that's what we did. And he chose a roast turkey for his birthday dinner along with a strawberry cake with chocolate icing. I still do the cake myself if at all possible, so I went out the night before to get the cake stuff.
His birthday is St. Patrick's Day, but that was on a Monday this year, so we celebrated the Saturday before. We woke up about 9am and I made the cake and got it into the fridge to cool so that I could ice it later.
I also had to run to the store for a few things while the cake was cooking. I took Gabi with me because she was ready and asking. Lily was off playing Minecraft with Nick, so it was just Gabi and I. We picked out broccoli and garlic bread for dinner, some drinks for the kids, and some ice cream to go with the cake. We even made it home in time to take the cake out of the oven.
While we were gone, Nick's friend arrived and they were all playing Minecraft. Tom put the turkey in the oven at 11:45 or so, and we left the house. (Hoping that the turkey would just take care of itself and not turn into turkey jerky!)
By the way, boys giggle. They were both in the way-back (the third row of seats) and chatting back there while each playing on handheld devices (Tom's old phone and Nick's iPod touch) and we just kept hearing all this giggling back there. I knew girls giggled, but I didn't realize boys did too. Tom confirmed that yes, boys do giggle. Men just don't talk about it apparently.
We went to McD's first for lunch:
Then we headed to the Aquarium where we saw the harbor seal exhibit before we even went inside. They were enthralled already:
We went through the whole first building at the Aquarium, which apparently has a whole outside part and another building too, and here Nick and his friend are, overlooking the water right outside.
They got to all pet some rays, which felt weird and soft (and were pretty smelly):
And sit on a dolphin. The boys were chatting about something:
But the girls posed for me. Lily has long hair and Gabi has short hair. I'm so glad they're still happy doing this! It makes telling them apart in photos so much easier!
Gabi dressed up as the Garbage Monster, but Lily was too shy:
The boys were eaten by a shark. They're excellent actors:
And they picked up the girls for a group shot. The girls were quite taken with Nick's buddy, and as he's the baby in his family I think it was good for him to see what caring for younger kids was like.
While in the Aquarium, at one point Nick came out of a cave and said "This is the best birthday EVER!" Yay! We bought little things (shark teeth, little dolphin and a ring) in the gift shop, and then headed back to the house. The turkey was doing fine, and I decorated the cake. I went ahead and did a Herobrine cake along with two grass blocks (this is all Minecraft stuff) and Nick seemed well pleased with my efforts. The kids played outside till dinner, and then we had our turkey dinner and then did the whole cake and ice cream thing:
Nick's wish will come true, so I really hope he didn't wish for a brother:
And then we did presents:
Nick had a great birthday, and two days later he was officially EIGHT! That night as I was tucking him in, he said "I don't feel 8. I still feel 7." That's ok Nick. To me you'll always be my baby.
